Eyrie
The Eyrie is a small community on one-thousand-foot steel truss bridge, 135 feet above the ground. The roadway was once the Pulaski Skyway, a section of U.S. Route 1/9 that crossed the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers. History Pre-War Construction on the Pulaski Skyway began in 1925, to provide a direct route to the newly opened Holland Tunnel, the first direct roadway crossing between New York and New Jersey. Construction standards at the time called only for 35 feet of coverage over the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers for ships to cross, but years into construction, those standards were changed and called for additional coverage. Not wanting to completely remove the recently built bridges, the steel tresses and roadway were raised, rising an imposing 135 feet in the air. The Pulaski Skyway officially opened to traffic in October 1933, but some fifty years later, was declared structurally obsolete, thanks to issues that arose during the planning and construction periods of the roadway and more modern highway bridge standards. Tearing and removing the massive structure would be nearly impossible and would be a waste of money, so in the early 2014s, efforts to rehabilitate the roadway began. The project took about a decade to complete, but once again, luck was not on the roadway’s side. By 2060, nuclear-powered vehicles, such as the Corvega, once again made the roadway structurally obsolete. The state government began looking into the best way to deal with the issue at the end of the decade, but before any real solutions could be found, 2077 arrived and the bombs fell from the sky. Post-War Much of the Pulaski Skyway was destroyed in the nuclear destruction. Like other roadways, portions of the skyway survived, among them a bridge that ran over the Passaic River. As society slowly began recovering from the nuclear annihilation, the bridge was mostly ignored, due to its imposing height and difficulty reaching. Wastelanders periodically made their way onto it, but outside of offering a very fortifiable location, it offered nothing more that would make survival in the wastes easier. The presence of raptors and vultures- including A'quila, large raptors descended from eagles- living on the bridge did not help much, either. Sometime shortly after the turn of the 22nd century, a roaming band of wastelanders climbed the abandoned bridge, looking for a safe place to stay before moving on. One of the men of the group, a mysterious figure known only as Bedoe, had some kind of innate connection with the hawks and vultures that made their home on the desolate roadway trestle. For whatever reason, they did not attack him like they did most others, and with minimal training, he was able to command the birds to perform various tasks. When other members of the group moved on, Bedoe and a handful of others stayed on the Pulaski Skyway ruins to live with the birds that Bedoe tamed. Those men and women would go on to become the Pulaski Birdmen, as Bedoe was the founder of the tribe and the stretch of bridge, The Eyrie, their home. In 2283, the leader of the birdmen, Skarae’ee, had his position challenged by a fellow birdman, a man called Balbory. The usurper successfully defeated the First Wing in ritual combat and became the new leader of the Pulaski Birdmen. Among the sweeping changes that he introduced to his people was to open The Eyrie, which had previously been closed to outsiders. Economy The Eyrie does not have much of an economy to speak of, as the Pulaski Birdmen were, until recently, primitive tribals living in a commune. Since former First Wing Skarae’ee was ousted by the current leader of the birdmen, Balbory, the new leader has joined the "New Ark Covenant" of Brick City and attempted to integrate his people into wider society. While the Eyrie’s location is not ideal for trade, Balbory seeks to turn the birdmen from raiders into traders, and he has begun to experiment with taking goods from place to place mounted on a’quilla. Layout The Eyrie sits on a one-thousand foot stretch of roadway over the Passaic River, 135 feet in the air. It is the easternmost settlement in Brick City. Because the population of the Eyrie is not very high, the settlement only consists of a handful of buildings. Conversely, it can be said that because the Eyrie cannot accommodate a large number of people, the Pulaski Birdmen purposefully kept their numbers low. Relations Before First Wing Balbory took over the Eyrie, the Pulaski Birdmen were opportunistic raiders that preyed on caravans and individual traders. Though they have since begun to change their ways, those that they used to harass have not forgotten. It does not help matters that the Eyrie is an extremely isolated settlement, in that it is both difficult to get to and visitors are not encouraged. The xenophobic birdmen are slightly more welcoming of outsiders, as has been Balbory’s decree, but many are still getting used to the edict, or are openly disdainful of it. Women often hide in their homes when the rare outsider arrives in the city and men often wear their masks and raiding outfits, attempting to intimidate them. The new First Wing still has a ways to go in reforming the Pulaski Birdmen before they are more widely accepted. Category:New Jersey Category:Places